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Tech Bytes: Australian rescued after falling for internet scam
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Australian rescued after falling for internet scam

by Paul Jay, CBCNews.ca

One would hope we in the media had published enough information on the dangers of stock spam and West African chain letters to make web surfers a tad skeptical when faced with a can't-lose proposition.

Then along comes Australian farmer Des Gregor. According to the Associated Press, Gregor, 53, was held hostage for 12 days in Mali after men posing as an online love interest enticed Gregor to come to the African nation with the promise of marriage and an $85,000 US dowry, where he was kidnapped.

According to the Associated Press:

Gregor, who returned to his home state of South Australia with a police escort late Sunday, said the men told him they would hack his limbs off with a machete unless he paid them a $85,000 US ransom. The scam was stopped when Australian and Malian police, alerted by Gregor's family in Australia, tricked the kidnappers into taking Gregor to the Canadian Embassy to collect the ransom money.

While Gregor's gullibility might be easy to mock (the kidnapper evidently offered the dowry in gold bars), the truth is spam, phishing and chain letters keep popping up on computers because they work: a 2006 study by researchers at Purdue in the U.S. and Oxford in the UK found enough recipients are acting on spam emails to consistently put spammers in the black. In other words, there are many Des Gregors around the world buying into the same loopy scenarios.

As Gregor told the AP: "Just be careful - make sure you check everything out 100 per cent."

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Comments

Carolyn Steven

"I offered her my heart... and then she brought out the machete..."

I'm completely stunned. Completely. I mean... those posers must be damned convincing to act as ONE WOMAN in order to trick a guy! Did they take turns? I'm friggin' curious!

Posted August 13, 2007 04:34 PM

Claudio

Ontario

...just can't find the words...how? How can people be falling for these things? How?

Now, I consider myself a fairly trusting person so I can understand people giving others the benefit of the doubt...but come on! A dowry in gold bars?! Man oh man, we need to better educate PC users.

Hopefully when our computer savvy kids have grown this sort of scam will be non-existent. Unless of course they learn to cook up their own clever schemes O.o

Posted August 14, 2007 08:42 AM

Jojo Mcbean

Can the results of the email correspondance between the scammers and the dude please be published? I think they would provide valuable infotainment.

Posted August 15, 2007 05:46 AM

Garet

Winnipeg

Sounds like a nice lady.

What was her email address again?

Posted August 15, 2007 09:58 AM

Claudio

Ontario

This reminds me of an ad I once saw which described a beautiful, athletic blonde that was looking for someone to take her home and love her. The ad went on about how she enjoyed going for long walks, loved to cuddle and how she was just looking for someone to love unconditionally. More than a few guys were disappointed to find that the ad was placed by the local Humane Society and the beautiful blonde was actually a dog being adopted out.

I guess some people fall for scams because they're lonely.

Posted August 15, 2007 11:04 AM

Scott

Montreal

The golden rule. Id you don't know the person writing the email, just put it in the trash bin. There. period. No exceptions.

Oh. and if you have a chance check the Nigerian Spam Scam Scam (yes two scams) comedie show, really interesting, informative and very funny.

Good day to all.

Posted August 15, 2007 11:34 AM

Carolyn

Garet:

i_heartyou_longtime_withknives[at]notascam[dot]com

Just remember... she may be too good to be true.

Posted August 15, 2007 12:22 PM

Nick Coad

Australia

I'm ashamed that this guy is Australian :o(

Posted August 15, 2007 09:00 PM

Zephyr

"Simple" reason: half the population is of below average intelligence...

Posted August 15, 2007 10:58 PM

Patrick O'Donnell

Ontario

I guess common sense is not all that..... common, eh?

Posted August 16, 2007 02:03 PM

Adrian

Windsor

Why are people dumping on this poor guy? For those of you who don't know, the interior of Australia is a wide-open expanse that is hardly populated except for some native tribes and farmers. There is little in the way of luxuries and amenities, and for a guy trying to find a mate that would be willing to move somewhere so remote, it isn't easy. Perhaps the internet was the only way this guy could find someone, someone who did not mind the distance, the solitude and the isolation. And what does he get for his efforts? Scammed.

Don't belittle this guy because he was taken advantaged of. Don't doubt his intelligence or motivations. To those that do, have you never been fooled by anything? I guess you are of the opinion that there are WMDs in Iraq, that Sasquash really does exist and not a man in a suit, and that the western forces were victorious in Vietnam. We are fooled as a populance every day by governments we elect, so people in glass houses stop throwing stones!

Posted August 17, 2007 09:58 AM

Carolyn

Adrian, we're goofing around. Half of the people who post on the Technology YourView know each other via posting here as jokers and we try to have a good yuk now and then. Yes, I'm sure we all recognize the guy was fooled and that it sucked, but at the same time, it was a funny idea that a bunch of men convincingly played a woman. You don't have to belittle us in return either... that just makes you as bad as us. ^^

Posted August 17, 2007 03:14 PM

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